Project name: Casa Capitão Pombeiro

Type of project: Refurbishment and extension

Location:Porto, Portugal

Project area: 260 m2

Collaborators: Pablo Hernandez Esteban, Takafumi Soma, Ana Soares, Nikola Gronychova, Vilém Kocáb, Kamya Khandelwal

Client: Private

Fotographer: Attilio Fiumarella

The original Porto city plot, long and narrow, did show a pre-existent single-floor building that extended to the backyard, beyond the neighbor’s facades alignment.

This construction has been maintained and refurbished to host the dinner and kitchen space. New big openings were created in order to bring more light in the interior.

The handrail of the new stair has a wooden finishing and a steel structure that permitted reducing the supporting elements. In the transition between the first and second floor, the handrail creates a reference with Portuguese traditional architecture.

The suite room wardrobe hosts the indirect illumination, the two secondary rooms research good use of the scarce available space using the side wall of the wardrobe as a bed headboard. Near the window and correctly illuminated is located the study space. The windows have new interior wooden shading panels, that follow the traditional Portuguese model, create better thermo-acoustic insulation and provide an effective system to modulate light and privacy.

The attic visible roof structure is new, since the old roof hasn’t been considered sufficiently stable to be refurbished. The shape of the roof truss is defined researching a balanced combination between static efficiency and aesthetical quality, and with relation to the handrail, wardrobes and other elements present in this space.

In the pre-existent situation, the backyard garden was located 1.3 meters above the ground floor pavement. In order to get the quote a wooden steps structure has been created giving shape to a low amphitheater space for the family use.